Short Hops
by Berzerkerprime
Summary: A collection of 5th Doctor plot bunnies, gap-fillers, and semi-mindless fangirl self-indulgences. Formerly "Deep." LATEST SHORT HOP: Stunned - Nyssa observes what sets the Doctor apart from his people when the TARDIS gets recalled to Gallifrey in "Arc of Infinity."
1. Chapter 1

Deep

By Berzerker_prime

Notes: Wrote this just after watching "Warriors of the Deep" for the first time. It kinda ended... er... abruptly. There needed to be just a little bit more.

Enjoy! And remember; fanfic authors love feedback.

* * *

"There should have been a better way."

Tegan knew that tone of voice. It was a sorrow deeper than anything she had ever heard from any Human (or Trakenite or Alzarian or... wherever Turlough was from which clearly wasn't Earth). Somehow, the Doctor just _felt_ things deeper than anyone Tegan had ever met. Death, particularly from violence, seemed to cut as deeply into him as any physical wound, particularly in this incarnation.

The Doctor was an odd contradiction. There were times he acted like her father and others where he acted like a lost child. He flew into danger, sought it out even, but was so ill-prepared for the outcome of it all.

Right now, the blasted look on his face worried her, almost as much as the actual burn marks on the temples of his head. He looked about the bridge of the sea-base, at all the bodies on the deck, but seemed disconnected. Through the hand she had at his elbow, she could feel him shake, ever so slightly.

Silence stretched on for a long moment and soon Tegan found that Turlough was at the Doctor's other elbow.

"Doctor?" he asked, tentatively.

"Are you with us?" Tegan asked. "Are you all right?"

"Server not found," the Doctor mumbled, "system error."

"What?" Tegan asked.

"Oh, no," Turlough said, gripping the Doctor by both shoulders. The Time Lord didn't seem to focus on him, instead looking through him. "He wasn't disconnected from the computer properly. His mind is still trying to sync up with it."

"But the computer's fried, isn't it?" Tegan asked.

"Should have been a better way," the Doctor repeated, distantly, as if he had not said it before.

"We'll have to do this the hard way," said Turlough. He gave the Doctor's shoulders a firm shake, sending the Time Lord's head bobbing. "C'mon Doctor! Snap out of it!" Another shake and then Turlough gave the Doctor's face a couple of light smacks on the cheeks.

As if startled, the Doctor suddenly focused in on his companion, his hands flying up to grab Turlough's wrists.

"Turlough," he said, as if surprised to see him.

"Are you with us, Doctor?" Tegan asked, again.

The Doctor's head jumped around to look at her. "Tegan!" And then something seemed to crash in on him and sent him reeling. "My head!" he said, squeezing his eyes shut and beginning to sway alarmingly.

Tegan and Turlough were on him in an instant, each supporting an elbow.

"You took a nasty zap from that interface," Turlough explained.

"We should get back to the TARDIS," Tegan supplied, "with everything that happened here, there's no telling when other authorities will show up and blame us for everything."

"Yes, yes, quite right," the Doctor breathed out. He grimaced again, as if the light in the place was bothering him. "I need to lay down," he admitted.

"That settles it, then," said Turlough, slinging one of the Doctor's arms over his own shoulder, "TARDIS it is. C'mon."

Together, Tegan and Turlough managed to get the Doctor through the narrow, white-washed corridors of the sea-base. When they reached the TARDIS, the Doctor fumbled with the key, but soon had it opened. The two companions were about to take the Doctor directly to his room, but the Time Lord made for the console instead.

"Tegan's right," he explained, working the controls though not with his usual energy, "we need to leave here. I'm setting the TARDIS to orbit in the Time Vortex. We should be safe there, for a time." He rallied his energy, but even so he stumbled several times as he wandered about the console. Tegan and Turlough looked on with worry. Finally, as the TARDIS began its flight, the Doctor stepped back and watched it work for a few seconds. "That should do it."

As he watched the column move up and down, the Doctor's face went white as a sheet. Finally, he looked away and put his hands to his head, swaying again.

"All right, then," said Tegan, putting herself under his elbow again, "Turlough can keep an eye on it from here. To bed with you."

"Why are the lights in here so blasted bright?" the Doctor mumbled as Tegan led him through the TARDIS halls and to his room. As gently as she could manage it, she deposited him on the bed. He flopped an arm over his eyes and seemed to be trying to breathe though the pain of a terrible headache.

"Do you get migraines, Doctor?"

"Not so loud, Tegan!" he exclaimed, waiving a hand at her. "No, not usually," he said a moment later, in a somewhat apologetic tone, "only after having my brain hooked up to a computer without being conditioned for it and then sending a surge of electricity through it."

"Well, we should probably do something about those burns on your face," Tegan said, dialing down the lights at the switch near the door.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

In response, Tegan grabbed a hand-held mirror from one of the small tables nearby and brought it over to the Doctor. She held it up in front of him. "Remember? Electricity through the computer that you were hooked up to?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor replied, setting the mirror aside, "well, I suppose that would do it, then."

"First aid kit?"

"Out the door, to the right, third column of roundels over, fourth from the top."

Tegan nodded and went over to the door. She stole a glance backward as she went out into the hallway. The Doctor had flopped his head back into the pillow and squeezed his eyes closed. He was gasping, but with his teeth clenched tightly. He cracked an eye open tentatively and Tegan hastily moved onward.

He was trying to be strong so as not to worry her. Damn, that man. Couldn't he just let on how badly he felt? He had done the same on the Eye of Orion, just before he had collapsed and they had met his earlier incarnations. He had tried to insist then that everything would be all right and had then ended up unconscious on the TARDIS console room floor.

Tegan muttered obscenities under her breath as she popped open the roundel and pulled out the first aid kit. She opened it up to make sure the proper ointments and whatnot were there and found instead a number of small, strange looking electronic tools inside instead. She checked the cover of the kit and, indeed, the TARDIS was translating the Gallifreyan into English; "First Aid" it read, without a doubt.

"He better not have moved the contents," she mumbled, "I'd hate to try and use a screwdriver on that burn." With a sigh, she closed the roundel and returned to the room.

The Doctor had flopped over on to one side and had his head shoved into the pillow. Tegan had been about ready to let out a glib remark about how she had either found the first aid kit or the small electronics repair kit, but it died on her lips as she walked over to him. Carefully, she sat down on the edge of the bed and gave his shoulder a gentle rub.

"I think I've got it," she said, "but you'll have to tell me which one I need."

The Doctor cracked an eye open and pointed to one of the small instruments. "That one's for burns. There's a switch on the side."

Tegan nodded her understanding and the Doctor let his eyes drift closed again. Tegan pressed the switch on the burn aid instrument and a little blue light flared to life at the tip. She hovered it close to the burn on the Doctor's right temple. Almost immediately, a streak of golden glow shimmered around the burn's edges and spread inward like a tiny line of flames, leaving behind fresh, pink skin in its wake. With a gentle nudge, Tegan coaxed the Doctor to turn his head enough to take care of the other burn. As he moved, he let out an almost imperceptible whimper.

Enough was enough.

"Doctor," she ventured, "I've been traveling with you for a while now."

The Doctor looked slightly exasperated, then fished his memory for some fact or another. In the end, he settled for a simple "Yes, you have."

"So, we can assume that that means we trust each other, right?"

"Tegan, are you going somewhere with this? Because I'm not really in the best frame of mind for... this sort of thing."

"Look, I'm just saying... after everything we've been through; Logopolis, Heathrow, Castrovalva, the Master, the Daleks... Adric. After all that, if you can't tell me exactly how bad off you are, I don't think you'll ever be able to tell anyone."

The Doctor gave a shuddering sigh and Tegan could have sworn she felt a sob shake the shoulder that was under her hand. He didn't seem to have anything to say in response and she could have sworn that she heard a small sniffle.

"Anyway," she said, standing up. She reached down a pulled a blanket up over him. "Just rest for a while. Turlough and I can get by for a little bit."

Before closing the first aid, she pulled out a small package labeled "cooling cloth" and opened it. She folded the enclosed cloth into a narrow rectangle and placed it on the Doctor's forehead. He didn't stir, but some of the tension seemed to ease in his face. As quietly as she could, she closed the case and headed for the exit. She turned out the light and was just closing the door when the Doctor's voice drifted after her.

"Thank you, Tegan," he said.

"Just shut up and sleep, you big, dumb kid," she replied softly, with a smile, then closed the door quietly.


	2. Stunned

Stunned

_Note:_ A missing scene for Arc of Infinity, part 2.

* * *

The curly-haired captain of the guard had not even bothered to tell her his name. Nor, for that matter, had he bothered to ask Nyssa for hers. No conversation was forthcoming from any of the armed thugs that were leading them through a Gallifreyan corridor, though it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying on Nyssa's part.

The guards drove her on ahead of them, dragging a shuffling and insensate Doctor along behind her. Nyssa didn't like the way the Doctor looked. He was flushed, his head lolled as the thugs dragged him along, his arms hung limp in the vice-like grips of the guards. He wasn't resisting their lead at all, as if drugged.

No, not drugged. Stunned, Nyssa realized. The guard-captain's gun had probably overloaded every synapse and nerve-ending in the Doctor's body. For a people supposedly so advanced, it was a barbaric thing to do. Especially considering that the Doctor had been weakened by an attempted temporal bonding by an anti-matter alien earlier that very day.

Nyssa had the horrible feeling that all this was only the beginning.

It was something of a surprise that they led Nyssa and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. The thugs dragged the Doctor through the console room to disappear behind the interior door. The captain stopped by the console, bringing Nyssa to a halt. Somehow, she had the feeling that she shouldn't leave him alone, there. So she did the only thing she could think to do; appeal to whatever humanity the captain might have.

"He's hurt," she said, "he must have proper medical attention."

"He'll recover," the captain said, without feeling.

Nyssa shot him her most withering gaze and went to follow the thugs who had dragged the Doctor into the TARDIS interior. But she stopped when she saw what he did next.

Ignoring the incredulous look Nyssa was giving him, as if it was patently unimportant, the captain stooped and popped open a panel under the console. From it, he removed a component; a circuit board with some sort of a liquid switch on the top. The TARDIS console made a disapproving little chirp when he yanked it loose. Nyssa recognized it as the main space-time element of the TARDIS flight control system.

Menacingly, the guard captain held the component up to show Nyssa. "The compound is guarded," he told her, "if you try to leave again, my men will shoot to kill. See that the Doctor knows."

Grinding her teeth, Nyssa turned on her heel and made for the interior door. The feeling was apparently mutual, she decided, since she heard the captain and his thugs leave through the main door.

"See that the Doctor knows," Nyssa muttered sarcastically as she stalked through the corridor, "oh, I'll see that he knows everything, you cruel brute."

She didn't have very far to go. The thugs that had dragged the Doctor along had rather unceremoniously tossed him in a heap on to his bed in his room, the closest to the Console Room. His head was at the foot of the bed and his legs dangled off in a position that could only be bad for the back. His eyes were open, but unfocused and he didn't respond as Nyssa quickly crossed the room.

"Doctor?" she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. He gave a soft whimper in response and she thought it sounded as though he had tried to say her name. "Horrible animals," she said, working her arms under his shoulders and shifting him so that he was sitting up. "Come on, Doctor," she grunted out with the effort of lifting him.

His head still swam and his eyes remained unfocused, though it looked like he was trying to focus on her face. "Ow," he said.

"Here," Nyssa said, tipping him over gently so that his head landed on the pillow as she guided him down. "Let's get you comfortable. Lay down." She swung his legs up and turned him on to his back. He seemed to rally a little and tried to help, but Nyssa had to do most of the work. Once he was settled, his hand drifted up to his chest where the guard captain's stunner blast had struck home. Nyssa reached for the spot and tried to probe it gently only to have the Doctor attempt to push her hands away with a whimper.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed. "Is it tender?"

Glazed eyes locked on her, the Doctor nodded weakly, gasping.

Nyssa gave a frustrated sigh. "Doctor, I don't know what to do," she said, "how can I help you? What will help you recover?"

There was a long pause and Nyssa wasn't sure whether or not the Doctor could answer. Finally, though, he whispered out two words. "Orange juice," he said.

Nyssa wasn't sure she had heard him right. Perhaps he was delirious. An Earth breakfast drink? At a time like this?

"Vitamin C," the Doctor pressed.

The way he said it made it seem like he was after a specific goal, so Nyssa nodded and rushed from the room toward the TARDIS galley. Somehow, the food synthesizer had already conjured up a glass, complete with a straw. It looked a little like a cocktail and she found herself checking, just to be sure there wasn't something a little stronger in the glass.

Orange juice in hand, she rushed back to the Doctor's room. His eyes were closed and he was still clutching at the tender spot on his chest. With some prodding, Nyssa managed to get him to drink a small bit of the liquid, though not very much. For the next half hour or so, she held the glass in hand and gave him small sips when he asked for them. Slowly, he regained his senses.

"Awful side effect of a stunner blast, vitamin C deficiency," he said some time later, "and nothing quite like orange juice to take care of it."

"Wouldn't a supplement have been more efficient?" Nyssa asked.

"Most certainly," the Doctor replied, "but the taste is nowhere near as pleasant. Besides, I'm sure the TARDIS gave it a bit of a boost." He gave a sigh. "Not the most welcoming return," he said at length, beginning to lever himself into a sitting position once again.

"They've taken the main space-time element," Nyssa told him, handing him the remainder of the glass of orange juice.

The Doctor took it gingerly. "Well, it's the only way to keep me and the TARDIS here," he replied.

"What do we do now?" Nyssa asked.

"We need a link," said the Doctor, setting the glass aside on the dresser, "something to prove the connection between this creature and Gallifrey." He boosted himself up and bounced off the bed to cross the room.

"And how are we going to find that?" Though he looked back at her, the Doctor didn't answer for a long time. So she pressed. "With those brutes outside waving their weapons about, we can't do a thing."

In his face, she could see a growing conflict. And suddenly she remembered all the times that the Doctor had spoken of Gallifrey with reverence. Though what had happened certainly seemed as though it was old news to the Doctor, it was also clear that it pained him.

The Doctor wished his people were better than who they were.

Nyssa could only hope that his wish did not set the Doctor apart, completely.


End file.
